Snapp paid cash, and a forklift dropped the box onto the truck. Once home in Riverside, he found a corner of his property sheltered from the breeze and added dermestid beetles. Soon he could hear them chewing away, a sound like a child eating Cheetos.

It took two years, and when the beetles were done, Snapp washed the skull with peroxide, named her Tiffany -- the glittery name from a tiara that he had saved from a Halloween costume -- and put her on display.

But, years later, when he tried to sell it across state lines, it was a violation of the ESA.

In the end, [the government agent] wasn't concerned that it had come from the zoo. That it was on the market was enough. It fueled an appetite for endangered species, and his job -- indeed, the government's job -- was to stop the trade of illegal wildlife products in the United States.

And that's the key: stopping the trade to protect the animals. Snapp was only successfully prosecuted because the government was able to convince a jury that "Snapp knew that selling the skull across state lines was illegal and ... he was a regular in the trade."

He may have broken the letter of the law, but as he saw it, he hadn't endangered any species by trying to sell the skull. He saw himself as no different from piano manufacturers who ship antique ivory keys around the country....

Of course, legally, it's not a question of how he sees it. The ESA contains the penalties the government saw fit to enact. Apparently, the theory is that the market in animal body parts endangers the animals that are still alive. A man can convince himself that what he wants to do isn't really the problem that led the government to pass the law, but that doesn't entitle him to do the things that the law proscribes.

And so what should be the law on possessing and selling parts of endangered species? Only those that are innocently found or sold without bad intent can be kept? How exactly do you demonstrate that?

Many species are endangered precisely because there is a lucrative market for their parts. It is a small price to pay to prevent the trade in these parts to institute an overall ban on animal parts covered by the ESA.

You guys all sound like a drunk whining--"I don't know why the cop pulled me over, I'm a good driver when I am drunk."

The provenance was clear here."He acquired the carcass of an Asian elephant that had been born in Thailand and shipped to the U.S. in 1966 (before the enactment of the ESA) and that lived out its life in zoos."

The case is PC bullshit.They should use some judgement fer chrissakes. Otherwise, replace the courts with a software program. Mindless stupidity should be cheaper than this.

@Freder, two to one you'd violate the ESA yourself in a nanosecond if the law turned out to be inconvenient to you personally in some small way. I say that with confidence because from your comments you're a classic liberal, and that's how liberals deal with the laws they inflict on the rest of us.

Me, if I was on Snapp's jury I'd vote to acquit and I'd hang that jury for a year if need be.

"Snapp posted Tiffany on Craigslist for $9,000 on Nov. 11, 2008, and immediately heard from a collector in Toutle, Wash. They exchanged e-mails, but negotiations stopped when Snapp admitted he didn't have documentation proving the skull was legally obtained."

"he didn't have documentation proving the skull was legally obtained.""

For a 1966 elephant?Since it's illegal, how can it possibly be "legally obtained" anyway?Is it really from the LA Zoo or not?Can't tell from the article.Is he lying or being railroaded?I suspect the latter, knowing the caprice of prosecutors.

You really shouldn't skip over the inconvenient facts in the article to bolster your sense of outrage. Snapp apparently did not have the proper paperwork that would have allowed him to legitimately sell the skull, which is why the first sale fell through. After he realized this, he discounted the skull 50%. That is probably what sunk him.

So, Snapp buys the elephant (dead) from the LA Zoo, cleans up the skeleton, gets busted by the feds for trying to sell the Skull, and in the end, the Fed who made the bust offers it back to the LA Zoo.

Which wasn't prosecuted, as an organization, nor the individuals involved in the original sale, for breaking the law Snapp was charged and convicted of.

No, the government has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Snapp knew it was illegal to sell the skull across state lines. I would imagine that the fact that the original buyer was willing to pay $9000, backed out when Snapp could not produce the paperwork, after which he dropped the price 50%, was enough to convince the jury.

So, Snapp buys the elephant (dead) from the LA Zoo, cleans up the skeleton

You really need to work on your reading comprehension skills. He bought the skull from the rendering plant where the elephant had been sent after it died at the zoo. That sale was probably the one that was the actual and initial crime. I doubt that the zoo authorized or approved of the rendering plant selling the elephant carcass to a private party (especially one that had been discovered to be infectious).

There are so many Federal laws on the books that it is awfully easy to break one unknowingly, as pointed out nicely by law professor James Duane, whose main point was the excellent advice that one should never talk to the police.

In its way, this story highlights the fact that prosecutors today are unwilling to use their discretion not to pursue criminal charges when, on reflection, that might be the better course. Of course, reflection only helps if the person doing the reflecting is an adult looking at the situation without ideological blinders. Here, Snapp was hardly a poster child for rapacious poachers killing off endangered species for profit, and it's ahrd to see why the gov't did not pursue a solution involving something other than criminal prosecution.

As the comments here show, criminal prosecutions like this for technical violations of regulatory statutes generate a lot of ill will, having the effect of undermining support for the very policies that the regulatory scheme is trying to advance.

It's generally a bad idea for gov't regulators to make laudable but abstract ideals look absurd in practice. But I think that's what they have achieved with this prosecution. Whether the 'encouragez les autres' rationale for prosecutions like this outweighs that effect seems doubtful to me.

As the comments here show, criminal prosecutions like this for technical violations of regulatory statutes generate a lot of ill will, having the effect of undermining support for the very policies that the regulatory scheme is trying to advance.

But part of the point of the purpose of prosecution is the deterrent effect. And this guy did not do any jail time and he didn't have to pay a fine. The punishment was not particularly harsh unless you are already inclined to think the ESA is a stupid law anyway.

"But part of the point of the purpose of prosecution is the deterrent effect."

As the USSR discovered, these prosecutions become mere political tools to curry favor or wipe out opponents or gain fame. It deters everything when everything is potentially illegal. So your choice is to say fuck it and hope for the best, or go whole hog and break some serious laws because it's only a matter of time anyway.

Just bribe the right people and you'll be fine.That's the end result of bullshit laws.

It's laws like this, interpreted like this and prosecuted like this plus rigid, anal retentive types like freder that reinforce my belief that I don't want government having anything to do with my health care.

Next thing you know my doctor will be prosecuted for prescribing me a medication for an "off label" use, or an "unnecessary" treatment. Bad laws interpreted poorly are poor excuses for frederism.

And they demonstrated this how? If he was a "regular," wouldn't that have been "trafficking?"

On a back road (we have a lot of those around here) a number of years ago I saw a reddish blob on the road that looked like a bird. I went back, and found what I think was a dead screech owl. Not squashed. Just dead. In the middle of the road.

I put it in the car and next day called a friend who was a taxidermist -- thought he might like it to sell, teach on, display, give to a school, whatever ... HA!

That thing was bagged in the back of my freezer for quite a while before it ended up in a hole in my backyard.

So some biology classroom missed a chance to have something cool and interesting as a draw. (Virtual owls and occasional trips to the nature museum just don't do it.)

I suppose I could have been arrested. Supposedly for promoting the hunting of birds of prey. Possessing feathers?

So are things only illegal if you think they should be illegal? Do you only obey the laws you like and agree with?

No, we leave that for liberals who vote for higher taxes and then cheat on their own; for liberals who emote all over the poor and downtrodden, but see to it that their own kids are safely ensconced in private schools; for liberals who push for alternative energy but fight fang and claw to keep windmills away from Cape Cod. Shall I go on, Freder?

Like it or not, Frederson is right. There is a market for endangered species (those of you here who don't even know that should sit out the discussion) and that market is pushing those animals towards extinction.

Exceptions for innocently or responsibly acquired animals or animal parts become loopholes for the illegal trade. That's not a debating point, it's a fact.

It may seem to the casual observer that a distinction should be made, but as a practical matter, if you value species preservation, then you cannot allow any sort of trade in endangered species.

Good grief. Every now and again we go outside to find an American Bald Eagle hanging out in one of our trees (we're just up the street from the Mississippi, and the Quad Cities area is a winter nesting ground for the eagles). Never thought to pray one doesn't run into the side of our house and get injured or something.

(They're no longer on the endangered list, by the way, but it's still illegal to "kill, harass, possess [without a permit], or sell" them under the the 1940 Bald Eagle Protection Act. Not sure why anyone would want to, myself. They are glorious, and their comeback is an amazing story.)

(Coincidentally, I lived in this area at the time the Eagles were placed on the list, back in 1967. It's been quite a thrill to see them everywhere, since moving to this area as an adult 14 years ago.)

As a matter of fact it is not obvious that this total protection regime is the best way to foster growth of a species. Whose future is more assured than the cow or chicken? Why? Because a chicken is worth a few bucks and a cow is worth a grand or so. How many millions or billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep, etc., are there?

It may seem a little risible to suggest that commercial or recreational exploitation is the best way to assure the continuation of a species, but while it's counterintuitive, work with it. We all know about the dodo, the passenger pigeon, etc., but that was in the past when these issues were not so well understood.

Essentially it was a tragedy-of-the-commons problem. Now we would know about the populations, and take steps, which (as with fisheries) would certainly not have to go to total bans on hunting, etc. People would cultivate dodos and passenger pigeons, craft habitat for them, etc. Hell, in some places in Africa, there are so many elephants their populations have to be culled.

In the U.S., once hunters realized uncontrolled hunting and diminishing habitat seriously depleted animal populations, they began working towards preservation and conservation of species and habitats. In 1900 there were an estimated 50,000 whitetail deer in the U.S., by 2005 there were approximately 30 million. Ducks, geese and many other species flourish for the same reasons.

When fake Indian, plagiarist and serial liar Ward Churchill testified in his suit against CU, he had an eagle feather on the stand next to him. Not legal for non-Indians.

And btw, the greatest disappointment I've had here wasn't Althouse's vote for Obama (lots of people made that mistake), but her ill-informed belief that Wart was fired in violation of his First Amendment rights, rather than for blatant and repeated academic misconduct.

wv: appussi. Definitely not Althouse, except in the physical sense. She was just wrong on that one.

"Apparently, the theory is that the market in animal body parts endangers the animals that are still alive."

It's probably true enough.

Sort of like how buying outrageously expensive but *legal* sea bass for your son's ginormous wedding reception dinner promotes the illegal fishing of those endangered fish because of an established demand.

Several years ago I wrote a story about a small town southern lawyer named Leighton Deming who was arrested by the FBI for trying to sell a 48-feather golden eagle feather headdress that Geronimo gave to the lawyer's grandfather in 1907.

Knowing that, under the Migratory Bird and Eagle Protection acts, private ownership of golden eagle feathers was legally suspect, Deming first tried to give the headdress to a museum. But nearly 50 museums, including the Smithsonian, turned him down, apparently for fear the federal government would either seize the headdress or destroy it.

Deming then tried to sell the headdress on the open market but was quickly arrested in an FBI sting that resulted in his facing 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.

Deming was both terrified and indignant. Why, he asked the FBI, was it charging him with a crime for attempting to sell something he'd been trying to give away free for the last 25 years?

Thankfully for Deming, he had lots of friends. Seven local judges contributed to his defense fund or wrote letters to the court attesting to his character. In the end the government allowed Deming to plead guilty to the charge of "unknowing bartering," accept a six month suspended sentence and surrender the headdress.

To Deming, who was terrified that he might lose his law license, it was too good a deal to pass up. But to University of Torledo emeritus law professor, Richard Edwards, Deming took the easy way out.

Until 1979, it was possible for people charged with selling eagle feathers to plead that they were selling "old" feathers that pre-dated the eagle feather ban. Under that theory, Deming would have presumably been on safe legal ground because he had uncontested documentation showing chain of custody all the way back to Geronimo himself.

But in 1979 in the Andrus v. Allard case, the Supreme Court ruled that the government had the right to ban even the sale of pre-ban eagle feathers.

To Edwards, Andrus v. Allard was not a decision bathed in glory. Unlike the Deming case, it involved dealers who were trying to sell eagle feathers for which they had no documentation (they claimed they could tell old feathers by their "patina".) Not surprisingly, the court didn’t put much stock in the age-dating-by-patina argument and it ruled against the dealers. In the process it sidestepped the Fifth Amendment "taking" issue, saying that a ban on selling feathers wasn’t really an unconstitutional taking of private property since the owners could still make money of the feathers by putting them on display, for instance, and charging admission.

But in the three decades since Andrus v. Allard, changing membership on the court accompanied by a growing respect for the Fifth Amendment has resulted in a new attitude toward government assertions that it has the right to seize private property without compensation.

"No one relies on Andrus anymore," says Edwards. "It’s been overruled on everything but the facts. Scalia would love to reverse it."

The last time such a case came up, says Edwards, the government let it be dismissed on a technicality rather than risk endangering Andrus. In 1986, the government tried to prosecute a man named Paul Raczka for trying to sell an old Indian headdress (containing in this instance pre-protection act feathers from bald eagles, golden eagles, red tailed hawks and owls). As in the Deming case, the government wasn’t so much interested in punishing Raczka as it was in getting the headdress. And the government offered him what Edwards calls a "sweetheart deal."

When Raczka boldly refused the deal, the government was in a quandary. To avoid a trial on the issue, says Edwards, the government simply held on to the headdress until it violated the speedy trial act, whereupon the judge dismissed the case, without ruling on the merits one way or the other. Andrus v. Allard was preserved (and Raczka kept his headdress).

Agreed. In the state I live in, you need a permit to possess feathers.

The Federal regulation of birds is pretty strict.

I'm a federally and state licensed bander (can band all species except waterfowl, eagles or endangered/threatened species - actually can band endangered/threatened species if they are incidental captures) and the federal application required a valid research proposal in order to be approved. Want to do feather pulls or blood draws of birds? Your federal permit needs those specific "endorsements".

Most of the laws regarding possession of remains of wild animals are outcomes of late 19th century/early 20th century conservation/preservation efforts.